In an appearance on yesterday’s edition of the Family Research Council’s Washington Watch, Ben Carson said that “people everywhere from politicians down to the lowliest person in our society” are “terrified” of speaking out on issues such as gay rights.

When host Tony Perkins asked him why politicians aren’t more vocal in their opposition to marriage equality, Carson said that members of the “PC police” are using “Alinskyite-type rules” to restrict “the freedom of speech [and] the freedom of expression.”

That’s odd, because at CPAC last week severalspeakers — including Carson himself — openly denounced gay rights and weren’t arrested or fined or punished in any way. Maybe all of this oppression is just happening in his own mind, where mere criticism is equated with persecution.